


Running Away

by ShinobiCyrus



Series: Closet Ghost [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: (obviously ignoring certain unnamed and terrible finales), Clone Angst, Clones, Ectoplasm, Female Friendship, Inspired by Fanart, Meg Myers, Named after the song by, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon, Secret Identity, awkward ex-boyfriend moments, friend fights, ghost violence, hurt friendships, with mild Steven Universe references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-12 13:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7106212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinobiCyrus/pseuds/ShinobiCyrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valerie wants to be angry. Things were simpler back when she was angry and so sure that she was in the right. Back when Danny Fenton and Phantom were two separate people. Back when she assumed the half-ghost girl crashing in her closet had been a random street kid Vlad had experimented on.</p><p>How did she never notice that they had the same eyes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Away

Valerie doesn’t know how long she lays in bed waiting for her alarm to go off. She didn’t know how much sleep she’d gotten, if any. Last night she’d gotten back from hunting -alone- spoke maybe three words to her dad and locked her door before falling into bed and stayed there until she had to slap her alarm quiet before it could let out a second blare.

Going through the morning routine helped. First she showers with the apartment’s lukewarm water, brushes her hair and teeth, stands in front of her closed closet before deciding to pick out an outfit from her dresser, instead. Breakfast is cereal she eats maybe three entire bites from, then she goes to the roof and suits up so she can ride her glider above the commuters circulating sluggishly through the streets on her way to school.

Danny isn’t in Homeroom. Tucker dutifully raises his hand and explains that he was “really sick” to Lancer, who shakes his head while marking his clipboard.

For the rest of class, Valerie ignores the itch on the back of her neck where Manson is glaring three seats behind her.

She almost wishes she’d stayed home too, just bury under her blankets and pretend she didn’t exist. Except she couldn’t sleep at all, even with the closet door firmly shut. She lays there until morning came, eyeballs like lead and hazy with exhaustion and gloomy thoughts too intangible to fully grasp.

School’s better. At least it’s something. The last bell blares, everyone around her are throwing on their book bags and cramming out the door. Valerie’s still at her desk, not entirely sure what she did that day.

She armors-up in her usual alley and flies home to clear her head. Gets enough altitude that she can trick herself into thinking the world’s gone; the sole inhabitant of an expanse misty clouds and moaning wind. The illusion is so complete she doesn’t realize she’s overshot Elmerton by miles until the suit flashes the damn map in her visor.

At home she cranks her music, cleans the apartment and cooks dinner to her favorite Dumpty Humpty album set on repeat. Damon comes in from his late shift with three nights worth of dinners portioned into plastic containers in the fridge.

It’s late when she finally goes to bed. Lays on her side so her back is to her closet door.

The alarm blares. Valerie wakes up in a tangle of sheets with Vortex’s thunder still shaking her ribs. She doesn’t remember falling asleep.

Danny finally comes back to class after three days. Valerie is pretty sure it’s three. Classes are starting to blur into a smeared impression of lectures and staring mindlessly at the blackboard. His eyes are bruised with exhaustion and his clothes are rumpled. Manson and Foley are always at his side, ready to talk to him in a low voice or put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Manson shoots her more death-glares if Valerie is so much as in the same hallway as him. Not that it’s really necessary. She’s probably been avoiding Danny more than he has.

She wants to be angry. Things were simpler back when she was angry and so sure that she was in the right. Back when Danny Fenton and Phantom were two separate people. When she privately assumed the half-ghost crashing in her closet had been a random street girl Vlad had experimented on.

_(How could she not have figured out the truth, when they have the exact same eyes?)_

At the end of school Valerie doesn’t want to go home. Doesn’t want to be reminded that no one will be waiting for her when she comes through the door. Just silent, lonely dinners and no one to share the uncomfortable couch with while TV drones mindlessly.

She goes hunting instead. Hunting will help.

Sensors set to maximum sensitivity, Valerie points her board towards the thickest concentration of ecto-signatures on the map. There’s a nest of ghostly monstrosities in a rusty graveyard of derelict factories on the edge of town. It’s like turning over a rock and uncovering a squirming carpet of black bugs underneath, begging for a boot.

An aerial bombardment softens them up before she jumps off and lands smack in midst of them. There’s more than she’d initially thought, materializing from the shadows of gutted buildings, eyes red and bodies lambent like cartoonish nuclear waste.

A mismatched spectral-green beast lopes at her. Valerie shreds it apart with a flurry of rapid-fire from her wrist blaster, spins around in time to catch the throat of a serpent-skinned thing before it can get a bite in. It hisses at her with nasty fangs, starts pushing against her grip and unhinging its jaw wider and wider. She wills her armor to reassemble her other gauntlet and shoves her new arm-cannon into its ugly maw and fires, blowing it apart like a mucus-filled balloon.

More come. A lot more.

Valerie’s on autopilot. She doesn’t count how many she’s reduced to smears of goo. An endlessly menagerie of warped, freakish bodies, faces like melted wax, gnashing rows of shark-teeth, claws and drooling spittle that sizzles on her armor.

She tries to find the shelter of that familiar anger, the rage that drove her before, but she can’t find it. There’s no thrill, no satisfaction; only this absence like she’s been hollowed out until there was nothing left of her but an empty shell of armor. Just numb, mechanical instinct.

Valerie doesn’t stop shooting, punching the ones that get too close, stomping the half-destroyed ones still scrabbling on the broken asphalt to get to her. An automated cannon swivels on her shoulder, picking off anything trying to catch her exposed back. The deafening chaos of her ecto-blasters is nearly drowned out by the chorus of howling wails and garbled white-noise failing to mimic human voices.

They aren’t alive. They’re ghosts. Vicious, unfeeling, unthinking monsters.

It’s jarring when there are suddenly no more targets. Her guns are glowing red at the muzzles and steaming. Her armor’s splattered with ectoplasm, ghost-gore drips off the ends of her knuckles.

A puddle of half-melted ghost sticks to the bottom of her boots. Valerie looks down and sees the last traces of its face melt away. It’s disturbingly familiar.

Hunting doesn’t help.

* * *

 

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

Valerie will admit she was half-asleep and really not expecting company at her corner table in the school cafeteria. Especially not a visit from Jazz, off all people.

It’s not as though Valerie had a problem with her. They’d just never really spent any time together- no reason to. Jazz is a Junior, they have different classes, different social circles (well, back when Valerie _had_ a social circle), they pretty much had nothing in common. In fact, even after taking shelter in her family’s house during that Ghost-King mess and dating her brother, Valerie doesn’t think she’s spoken a word to her before now.

To be honest, she isn’t in the mood to start now. “I’d really prefer to sit by myself, if that’s oka-”

“Great, thanks!” Jazz blithely set her tray down and sits across from her.

Valerie isn’t as annoyed at the intrusion as she should be. Being annoyed took energy she didn’t have. She sighs at Jazz’s tray of what passed for cafeteria food and ignored the empty stomach-pangs of a lunch forgotten at home.

“You’re not going to let me enjoy my not-lunch in peace, are you?”

“I’ll give you my dessert.”

Valerie glares at the offered off-brand Jello cup for about three seconds before snatching it.

She doesn’t know how much Jazz knows, but she can guess. “If you’re here because you’re worried I’m gonna let Danny’s secret slip, you can relax.”

“I’m not. If you had wanted to hurt him with that you would have done it already. I want to see how _you_ were doing.”

“Shouldn’t you be bothering Danny with all this well-meaning-slash-annoying prying?”

“Oh, I’ve already pestered him plenty. And he has Sam and Tuck to look after him.” She gestures at the empty chairs surrounding them. “You don’t seem to have anyone.”

“Well I’m fine, thanks for the green-goop.”

“I’m sorry, but you don’t really look all that ‘fine,’ to me.”

“Yeah well, how fine or not-fine I am is really none of your business.”

“It is when it has to do with my little brother. _And_ my new little sister.”

Damn, she really did know everything. Valerie feels a railroad-spike of panic. The cafeteria seems claustrophobic with the press of too-many people, too close.

“I’m not here to make judgments. Finding out-” Jazz subtly glances at the closest people about half a table away. “-how you did…must have been a pretty big shock, especially considering your history.”

Okay, make that _everything_ everything.

Valerie leans forward and hisses. “Finding out the man I thought was my mentor was a literal two-faced monster playing me like a pawn- _that_ was shock. Finding out that I was the one person everyone was okay with keeping in the dark- _that’s_ …”

Humiliating, that’s what. The words clog her throat and refuse to come out. She’d felt like such a gullible idiot, catching Vlad enjoying that little laugh with himself for having kept that wool over her eyes intact.

But it hadn’t been just Vlad, had it? Valerie thought she finally had a handle on things- playing dumb with Vlad, acting the dutiful errand-girl while she bided her time, only to be proved an idiot all over again.

Accidental or not, Danny as Phantom had ruined her life, and Vlad had taken advantage of that built her up into something that he could use. She’d soaked up all of Vlad and Danny’s lies until she felt more a product of their secrets than herself. Until she didn’t know who she was anymore.

“When Vlad lies it’s to take advantage of people,” Jazz says. “When Danny lies it’s usually because he’s scared.”

“And what’s _her_ excuse?” Valerie snaps back bitterly.

“Is that why you’re upset with her?” Jazz looks at her inquiringly. “You had to have known that there were things she couldn’t tell you.”

Valerie stabs into the green jello with her spoon and eats to avoid answering. Danielle _had_ said that there were things she couldn’t share with her, right from day one. Valerie thought she’d been okay with that, but now everything was a mess. She didn’t even know where all the anger was coming from, or why she was so upset with her. She just…was.

“Or,” Jazz goes on. “Maybe you’ve been using ghost-hunting as an outlet on your frustration for so long, now that the truth is out and it’s not as clear-cut as you thought, you don’t know how to process your feelings, anymore.

“You.” Valerie glares. “Don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know you have a strong sense of responsibility. Why else would have taken her in, when you found her hiding out at your place?”

That’s a question Valerie asked herself more than once. Especially in the last few days. She thunks down the empty jello cup. “Time’s up.”

Jazz holds up her hands. “Okay, that’s fair. If you don’t want to talk about it anymore, I’ll leave.” She gathers up her tray and her backback and stands. “Just think about this: if you didn’t have a problem with her not telling you the whole truth _before_ , were you lying then, or is there something else that has you so upset?”

She doesn’t expect an response. Just walks off with her tray, cheerfully humming to herself as if she hadn’t just planted a thought that would gnaw at Valerie for the rest of the school and long after she got home to her empty room.

* * *

 

That night she dreams of that last fight again, only this time Vortex’s lighting bolt hits Danielle, instead of Phantom. There’s the flash, and the thunder rattling all the way through the suit to her heart. She sees her fall and can’t move fast enough, can’t do anything but watch her fall.

Valerie angles her board down, flies down as fast as she can but can’t find any sign of her. She jumps off her glider and frantically calls for her over and over, then stumbles. Her boots are stuck in something, and when she looks down she sees a puddle of ectoplasm.  Danielle’s face looks up at her, sagging and distorted as it melts under her heel and mouth gaping open to-

She shoots upright in bed, face damp with sweat and breathing hard while her brain tries to make sense of the dark; peel apart the memories from the nightmares, not able to decide which was worse.

It takes longer than she cares to admit to recognize that the knocking sound on her window is real.

Before she even starts making connections she’s already on her feet and throwing open her curtains, heart racing and almost nauseous with a sour mixture of dreadful hope that’s quickly sunk by disappointment.

Danny Phantom’s hovering outside her apartment building.

He waves lamely. Valerie strongly considers closing her curtains and going back to bed. She opens the window instead and crosses her arms across her chest.

“Um.” He fidgets in mid-air. “Hi.”

These are literally the first words he’s said to her in a week. The look she gives makes him cringe. He sighs, whole body slumping. “I know, I know. I’m pretty much the last person you want to see right now.”

“You’re definitely the runner-up.”

“Look: it’s late and I’m sorry for waking you, but I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

Is it late? Valerie doesn’t want to turn away from Phantom to check her clock. Not like he needs to know that he didn’t wake her up, anyway. Let him suffer a little.

“I just wanted to know if you’ve heard from Danielle at all since…uh.” He reaches for a word. “…then?”

“No.”

“Dammit. I was hoping she’d at least-” He cards his fingers through his hair. God, it was the exact same hairstyle, just white. Valerie is floored by her complete ineptitude.

Still, she takes pity on him and offers the same hollow reassurance she’s been using for herself all week. Maybe it’ll work better for him. “She’s been gone a lot longer before.”

“We both know this is completely different Val. I’m worried about her. Really worried. And don’t try to convince me you aren’t too- I thought _I_ was the one who was supposed to be the mascot for ‘overworked and underslept.”

Like hell she’s admitting anything to _him_. God, she’s almost grateful that he came to her as Phantom. It makes it easier to pretend that nothing has changed.

_(A niggling thought wonders if that was on-purpose, coming to her as the ghost she hated instead of as the first person she ever kissed. She wonders what kind of person does that, choosing to be hated?)_

“I’ve stayed up late searching every place in town and the Ghost Zone  I could think of where she might hiding, but I haven’t found a trace of her.” Danny says. “So she’s either not in town or-” He sighs. “Or she’s avoiding me on purpose.”

“Yeah, she’s always been good at running away.”

“ _You_ managed to find her before. I…will you help me? I’m not saying that you two need to…I-I just want to make sure she’s _safe_ , okay?”

He’s practically pleading with her, just like before. Whatever Danielle is to him, Danny is willing to swallow his pride, surrender to a ghost-hunter to be electro-shocked, even face his ex-girlfriend if it meant she’d be safe.

Valerie’s got a laundry list of shit for Danny Whichever-His-Name-Is,  but instead of that she breaks it to him tiredly. “It’s been _days_. For all we know she could be on the other side of the planet by now.”

“It’s Friday. Not like we have school or anything tomorrow.”

“Right, we’ll just scour the globe for her in a weekend. Sounds simple.”

“How did you manage to track her down last time?”

“Vlad told me she was in town. My suit’s got sensors that can pick up ecto signatures- but only when they’re close. So unless you can narrow it down-”

“If I could, you think I’d be here?”

Okay, she had to give him that. “I’d ask if your parents had something that could detect a ghost, but considering you’ve been living under their roof for years, I’m thinking no.”

“Yeah, lucky my Dad’s the one coming up with all the- wait. The booomerang!”

“…the what.”

“The booomerang!” He slaps his forehead. “It’s something my parents built that can find any ghost by their ecto-signature no matter how far away they are.”

“And you’re only thinking of this _now_?”

“It’s been a long week. I’m lucky it only took me three tries to find your window. By the way the guy down in 612 might be _slightly_ scarred for life.”

Valerie almost laughs before she catches herself. That guy was in his forties and somehow always around to chat her up while she was getting mail or down in the laundry room. Creep.

“Okay, fine. I’ll help.” She begrudgingly agrees. Danny floats a few inches higher in relief. “But only to make sure Danielle’s safe.”

“Duly noted.”

* * *

 

She has Danny wait for her on the roof while she leaves a note for her Dad explaining that she grabbed a last-minute morning shift at the Nasty-Burger for when he wakes up to an empty apartment.

They fly in silence to Fenton Works. The déjà vu is already too strong, so she decides to hover near the giant command-center thing while he goes inside to grab the thing he _should_ have thought of six days ago. She resorts to mentally scrolling through her playlist on the helmet’s visor waiting for him before he finally reappears with-

“It’s really a boomerang. I don’t know what I expected.”

“Actually, it’s the _boooo_ merang,” He waggles his fingers with tired obligation. “It needs at least two extra ‘o’s. My parents put it on their very scientific whiteboard explaining it.”

“It’s a miracle you’re still in one piece, with such crack ghost-hunters gunning for you.”

She regrets it the second it’s out of her mouth. He tries to hide his flinch by fiddling with the boooomerang’s controls.

“I’m setting it for Danielle’s ecto-signature, so it should lead it straight for her.”

“Should?”

“Okay little guy, find Dani!” He rears back and throws the booomerang at the horizon. They watch it whirl and correct its course, arcing back towards them.

“I think it’s working!” Danny says.

She doesn’t even try to stop herself from laughing when the booomerang hits him directly in the face.

“You didn’t even try to get out of the way!” she cackles again, because dammit she needed that.

Danny rubs the new sore spot on his forehead. “Stupid thing. _Every time!_ It must be confusing mine and Danielle’s ecto-signatures because they’re so similar. _Now_ how are we supposed to find her?”

“If it gets the same reading from both of you, why don’t you just set it to go after the one that’s farther away?”

He slowly turns to look at her, then looks back down at the booomerang. “Can I claim a head injury as a defense?”

“Just throw it, already.” With any luck, it’ll take him a few more tries to get it right.

On his fourth try, instead of coming around for another hilarious collision course with Danny’s face, the boomerang- sorry, _Boooomerang_ \- veers off in a completely new direction. After turning sharply, it bypasses Danny entirely and sets off towards the edge of town.

“Finally,” he groans with relief. He flies off after it, and after a moment’s hesitation Valerie fires up the glider’s afterburners and follows him.

“Any way to tell how far this thing is going to go?” Valerie coasts alongside him.  

“Jazz threw it into the ghost portal once and it took ten years for it to-” He stops at Valerie’s flabbergasted expression. “Uh…on second thought nevermind. Long story.”

“I’ll bet.”

The booomerang’s course is fixed firmly north. First they pass over sleeping suburbs, then the winding arteries of the highways still bright with the headlights of cars. Chicago is a fixed point like a landmass off in the distance, not quite in the booomerang’s path.

They keep flying until the city shrinks down into the horizon behind them. The landscape starts becoming dark and flat as the lights becomes more space. If she wanted to, Valerie could just turn on the optics in her helmet to see everything clearly. From above she could see individual cars on the highway, each so far away from the ones behind and ahead that to them they were isolated.

Danny makes an raw, uncertain noise in his throat. Neither of them have said a word to the other since about three-hundred miles back.

This high and this fast, his words gets caught up in the streaming wind. Valerie flies a bit closer and turns up her helmet’s mic.

“What was that?”

He doesn’t look at her. Just keeps flying straight ahead, the otherworldly echo in his voice somehow clear enough for her to hear him say, “All that, with Cujo and your Dad. I never meant- I would never- it was an accident.”

He’s trying to apologize. Except she remembers that he’d already apologized, back when it first happened. At the time, Valerie hadn’t understood why the guy she treated like something stuck on the bottom of her designer pumps even bothered. Now she knew.

“It was all an accident. Everything that’s happened has been an accident. The accident with the portal that made me half-human, trying to catch a rampaging ghost-dog and accidentally destroying your life, accidentally-” He turns in the air, looks right at her. Desperate to make  her understand. “What you said before, after I- after you saw me. It was never some…plan. It wasn’t some game, or me messing with you. Me and you? That was an accident too. Sam and Tuck even tried to talk me out of it, they thought you were too dangerous, or that we’d just both end up hurt.” He glances away. “Guess they were right.”

“That was my decision,” Valerie says, surprising herself. All this talk of things she thought was done and settle is stirring up her insides. “I thought I was putting you in danger, that my ghost hunting was going to get you-” She shakes her head and laughs, rueful and maybe a bit bitter. “Guess I ended up trying to protect you from you, huh?”

“It’s your basic superhero secret-identity shenangians.” Danny shrugs, ironic and maybe a little grim. “Dash and Paulina and everyone at school thinks Phantom rules and Danny Fenton is a loser- you and my parents hate Phantom. It’s always just…one or the other.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“I- wait really?” Danny gapes at her with a look that is so desperately hopeful  that Valerie keeps her eyes fixed ahead; doesn’t let him see anything more than reflections on her visor.

Valerie doesn’t know when she stopped hating Phantom. A grudge maybe, intense dislike definitely, but after finding out her mentor is a manipulative ghost-powered psycho, holding a vendetta over a guy and his ghost-dog seemed way too petty.

She hadn’t even thought about it, during the fight with the three of them against that weather-working ghost. Phantom got brought down by a lightning bolt, and Valerie had dived down to catch him before he hit the ground.

(Then those bright rings flashed around his body, different than Vlad’s but the same species, and she was holding Danny instead and it was like her life fell apart all over again)

“I don’t _hate_ you, okay?” Valerie snaps, irritable and conflicted. “Neither of you. I-” Her fingers flex and she’s queasy with the memory of ectoplasm squicking on her boots. Dripping off her knuckles. “I just really want to punch you in the face, sometimes. A lot sometimes.”

Some of Danny’s relief deflates. “Oh.”

“It’s…going to take a lot of time for me to sort through all of this.”

“Yeah, it’s okay. I get it.”

Oh good. At least one of them did.

They fly a little further, no conversation but the murmurs of the wind. He carefully begins to ask. “Uh…so about you and Danielle-”

Valerie stops him before he can finish. “Let’s just focus on finding her, first.”

They keep flying, diligently keeping pace with the boomerang as it starts taking them over Wisconsin’s denser wooded ares. Valerie’s helmet tells her they’ve been flying steadily for over two hours, already. How far north were they going to have to go?

Elle’d always joked about running off the Canada. Well, neither of them had passports, so if they were going to be illegally crossing a countries borders, there were worse choices.

“Oh no.” Danny says. “I think have a really bad feeling where this thing is taking us.”

Valerie shakes the monotony loose from her head. “What was that?”

He points down at the forest below. “Look.”

Cutting her speed, Valerie’s visor sweeps over the landscape. They’re miles from the main highway, only a few lonely private roads slithering through acres of dense wood until the treeline just stops abruptly, foliage cleared away for a sprawling estate that dwarfed her apartment block.

She zoomed in on the manor, creamy white pillars and fine brickwork with absolutely zero signs of life. Behind the house, almost rivaling  it for size is a…is that a miniature football stadium?

“Where the hell did your dumb pun bring us to?”

Danny hovered next to her thoughtfully. “This is Vlad’s mansion. I mean, his old mansion.”

Panic shoots through her veins all at once, burning her neurons like jet fuel. “Are you saying Danielle’s been-”

“No, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s been here much since he moved everything to Amity.”

Valerie cocks her head at the boooomerang, now spinning in a holding pattern. “Is it supposed to do that?”

“I have no clue. I think it’s…thinking?”

The red light winked again, a signal for the boomerang to rocket downwards towards the mansion.

“After it!” Danny took off after it before Valerie could even get off a sarcastic response.

Being in the air too long had ruined her sense of scale. Flying back down to ground level, the sheer size of the mansion floored her. The big, expensive house Vlad bought in Amity’s ritziest gated community might as well have been a shack compared to the acres and acres he had up in the Wisconsin hinterland.  

The boomerang broke through one of the mansion’s tall windows, leaving a hole like some neighborhood kids had been careless with a fly ball. Danny followed seconds later, phasing through the glass without shaving off any of his speed.

‘Oh the hell with it,’ Valerie thought, and barreled right through the entire thing.

Danny looked over his shoulder. “Careful! Knowing Vlad this whole place could be boobytrapp-YEEAGGH!”

She really had to give him credit for calling it, even if he did wind up flying right into the green energy web that materialized in the doorway. Hopping off her glider, Valerie stepped over Danny while he was still smoldering and walked harmlessly through the energy field.

“When you’re right, you’re right, Phantom.”

Her boots click hard, rhythmic echoes through the halls. It looks as though Vlad hadn’t been back since he’d been elected last year. Whatever hadn’t been shipped to his new digs in Amity had been left behind to be covered in white sheets that Valerie tried not to find ironic.

Valerie finds the boomerang lying in the foyer, the bare wall dented where it hit. No indications why the stupid was under the impression Danielle was there. She picked it up off the ground and scowled at the inert light. As mixed as her feeling were for following the blasted thing, now Valerie is just annoyed for having flown all this way with nothing to show for it.

Danny moans and cradles the side of his head.

“I think this fool thing is broken,” she waves it at him, then at the mausoleum of a house. “Nothing here but dust and echoes.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” His hand gone see-through, he reaches through a patch in the wall where a large painting must have been hung. There’s a click, and a section of the wall slides open, revealing a set of stairs leading downwards.

“A hidden switch that can only be accessed intangibly.” Danny claps non-existent dust off his gloves. “I’ll give it to the old froot loop- he doesn’t miss a trick.”

“How did you even know that was _there_?”

“…look I’ve been held prisoner here a _lot_ , okay? Let’s just go.”

The toes of his boots brush a few inches over the steps as he lazily drifts downstairs. Valerie follows more conventionally.

Damn, why did Vlad even _have_ so many stairs? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have his secret underground dungeon-lab without any human-doors so only he could access it? For a super-powered genius the guy was a moron.

Then again, he’d played her like a dutiful little fiddle for years, so who was the real dumbass?

She honestly didn’t want to think about how many tons of mansion and bedrock were above her head when they finally reached the bottom. At least the ceiling was high. Easier to trick herself into believing that she was in another room of the house, instead of buried under it.

Danny flew ahead, predictably, leaving Valerie behind to examine a whole lot of nothing. Just more mothballs and mixed feelings. Steel tables and banks of computers covered in sheets and a dusty film. From the familiar shape of the discoloring on a glaringly blank wall, Vlad must of dismantled his ghost-portal for the move, too.

Florescent lights were on, though. Which was odd. Why would-

“Danielle!”

Danny’s voice sounds impossibly loud, trapped down in the lab and bouncing endlessly off the walls. Another voice murmurs in response, too quiet to make out more than a few words, but she still recognizes it.

Valerie feels like she’s underwater, following the voice clumsily in her armor. One foot in front of the other, guts leaden and heavy with a squirming queasiness. There’s an adjoining lab just as large as the first, half demolished and abandoned in the middle of its repairs.

Danielle there, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor, camped out in a nest of pillows and linens pilfered from fully furnished bedrooms just above their heads. She’s still in the same clothes she’d been wearing when they’d gone hunting…God, was it only a week ago?

“Stop being so dramatic,” Dani says.

Danny crouches next to her.“You’ve been missing for a week, Danielle.”

“I’ve been gone a lot longer than that before. You didn’t seem to mind then.”

He scratches the back of his head guiltily. “That was different. I…I’ve been worried about you, okay?”

“Well you can stop worrying. I’m _fine_ , see?”

“Danielle,” He always used her full name, Valerie only just realized now. “You’re in _Vlad’s basement_.”

“I know, perfect hiding place right?” She chuckles that same grim laugh. “He never comes here anymore. It’s the last place he’d think to look; I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before!”

Danny looks over his shoulder doubtfully at the a bank of six steel vats lined against the wall. They’re cylindrical and disturbingly person-sized. One’s dented and knocked over, its insides sickly discolored. Valerie knows old ectoplasm stains when she sees them.

“Look, it’s no big deal, okay?” Dani blusters. “I know how to take care of myself- I’ve been doing it as long as I’ve been alive.”

As long as she’s been-? The logic catches up with her. Of course, there was no way Danielle was actually a thirteen year old girl. How long had her life been so far? A few months? A _year_?

“If you’re trying to convince me to come back with you, forget it. I’m not interesting in being someone else’s burden.”

“You’re not a burden, Danielle.” Danny admonishes her. “You’re-”

“What?” She wheels on him, challenging. “Please tell me _exactly_ what I’m supposed to be to you, Danny!”

“You’re family.”

All the tension in her shoulders loosens. She sighs exactly the same way Danny does. “That’s.” She breathes. “That’s really sweet of you, Danny. It really is. I just don’t-”

Valerie goes rigid. Danielle does a double-take, eyes wide and blinking frantically like she’s trying to dismiss a mirage. After a few moments of processing what she’s seeing, she scowls and coldly demands.

“What’s _she_ doing here.” She crosses her arms and deliberately looks away.

Danny does his best to placate her. “I was having trouble finding you. So I asked her for help.”

Her eyes dart to Valerie, questioning.

They’re standing right next to each other. Even in his ghost-form, the resemblance is impossible to ignore. She’d be lying if she said that it didn’t make her uneasy. She’d be telling the truth if she said she didn’t know why it did.

Valerie’s grateful her visor only shows Dani her own reflection. “She looks fine to me.” She turns her back to them so she doesn’t have to see their identical, hurt expressions.

“Wait- you’re leaving?” Danny asks.

“I said I’d help you find her. We found her.” She glances at him over her shoulder. Keeps her pace slow so it doesn’t look like she’s running away. “I have a two-hour flight back to Amity look forward to. You can handle-”

“Awww, what’s your hurry, Val?” Somehow, Danielle’s in front of her now. “You like, just got here.”

“Danielle-” Danny starts.

She ignores him, grinning at Valerie with a fake smile and a manic, bitter hostility in her voice.

She opens her arms wide at the cold, dusty dungeon littered with junk-food wrappers. “You like the new digs? The ‘rents aren’t home right now, but I can still give you the grand tour.”

“Danielle…” Danny repeats, more forcefully.

She should just leave. Keep walking and ignore her before things get worse. There’s a weight keeping her in place, like the air’s gone thick with subterranean pressure, bearing down on every inch of her. A coil like long fuse constricts around her heart.

Dani points at the pile of blankets in the corner, the spent food wrappers underfoot. “So that’s the Master Bedroom, and this here is the kitchenette. Sorry, I would have made extra if I knew company was coming. Oh!” She scampers over to the line of metal tanks, playing a kid showing off their bedroom. “These are what Vlad grew me and my brothers out of. That one’s mine, that was Bones’, Sparks’ is over there, Grouchy’s is the last one down, and that-” She shrugs at the wrecked and stained tank. “Well, that guy didn’t have a name. Not that it mattered, they’re all dead now, right Danny?”

He spares Valerie a worried look. “I think the tour’s over, Danielle.”

“Huh? Why?” She feigns innocence. “Oh, I’m sorry,” The fake smile turns sour. “Am I making you _uncomfortable_ , Val?”

The coil tightens around Valerie’s chest. She’s filled with thick fluid like ectoplasm, oozing thick in her veins and making each beat of her pulse almost painful.

_(It’s right behind her that big metal coffin is what she came out of and she can’t look away)_

“I don’t have to stand here and take this,” She makes to leave, but Dani slams her fist hard on the tank.

The flimsy pretense is gone, and she practically snarls out, “ _No_. You don’t get to decide when this ends. _You’re_ the the one who told me to leave!  _You’re_ the one who couldn’t stand to _look at me!_ ”

The white rings flash across her body, replacing the small, tired-eyed girl in the filthy hoodie with a half-ghost glaring at her with eyes like sizzling jade. “You don’t get to show up and just…leave like I’m some kind of inconvenience for you!”

There it is: there’s the spark. The fuse is lit and hissing; Valerie opens her mouth and chokes out with a lungful of smoke and anger.

“Don’t you try to play the victim in all this. I’m not the one who lied-”

“I never lied to you! I told you at the start that there were things I couldn’t tell you-”

“Oookay!” Danny edges between them nervously. “How about we all just-”

“ _Stay out of this!”_ They both snap.

“Not telling the whole truth is just another way to lie!” Valerie shoots back, Danny already forgotten.

“You didn’t have any problems with me keeping secrets before!”

She thrusts a finger in Danny’s direction. “That was before you were some copy of  _him!_ ”

The words are out of her mouth and Danielle moves like an explosion, flying at Valerie so fast that both Danny and her have zero time to react before she hits Valerie in the chest, tackling her at full-speed.

Even through the armor, Valerie’s breath gets knocked out of her. The lab floor leaps away from her with blurring speed, and there’s only darkness of bedrock that have never seen light and that airy, hollowed-out feeling from intangibility for a second or two as they pass through the ceiling.

Suddenly she’s confounded by air and light and substance again and there’s no time to think before her back hits something solid and painful. Thankfully, landing more-or-less in a crouch doesn’t require any thinking after years of hopkido lessons.

Upset books topple around her, bounce harmlessly off her armor. Her focus is on Danielle hovering in the middle of Vlad’s library, holding a ball of blazing ectoplasm.  

“You want to talk about lies?” Dani asks. “How about the one where you were supposed to be my _friend_?!”

She hurls the ecto-bolt like a fastball, forcing Valerie to dive to the side. The bookshelves take the hit, burning bits of wood and paper flutter. Valerie primes the blaster on her wrist and fires back with a volley of low-powered bolts, strong enough to stun.

Dani loops to avoid them, answers by throwing more ecto-blasts. They’re easy enough to avoid so long as Valerie keeps moving- Danielle’s aim is angry and sloppy and does nothing but fill the air with little flurries of paper and green fire.

Furious, Dani rockets down and dive-bombs her with a sweeping kick. Valerie smoothly leans back and lets the blow swipe past her faceplate.

She’s more a scrapper than a real fighter. Too raw and untrained, her punches too obvious. Valerie slaps aside the first one-two combo with practiced ease, infuriating Dani to come at her with wilder and more reckless attacks.

The kick to her chest is poorly telegraphed. Valerie stops it halfway and grabs Danielle by the ankle. She gapes, leg stuck mid-kick and completely off balance. Valerie gives her no time to react and sweeps her remaining leg out from under her.

For half a breath she falls before instinct kicks in and Dani uses her power to hang in mid-air. Valerie doesn’t miss a step, bringing a hammer-fist down right into her stomach. She drops the rest of the way and gasps when she hits the ground.

Valerie levels her blaster. “Stay. Down.”

She fires the stun-bolt too late. Dani’s already gone intangible and sinks down into the floor. Great, now she could be anywhere. Valerie trains her blaster over the seemingly empty room, sensors pinging but no able to-

Something at her feet makes her stumble. A pair of ghostly hands come up from the floor and try to grab hold of her ankles, pull her down through the carpet.

Clever, but not clever enough

She lets them touch her right before triggering the suit’s defenses. Red lighting arcs over her armor, zapping Danielle’s hands and forcing her to let go.

“Give it up, Danielle,” Valerie calls out to the room. “We both know you can’t beat me.”

Rising up from the other end of the room, Danielle ignites both hands. “I. Don’t. _Care!_ ”

She screams a battle cry and throws another wild flurry of bolts. Valerie holds them off with a crackling red energy-shield from her gauntlet and fires back.

A burst of greens rises up from the floor between them. Arms outstretched, Danny raises ghostly shields and blocks both of their attacks like a referee.

“That’s enough!” He gives each of them a hard, intolerant look. “You’re both acting like a pair of lunatics!”

“I’m only finishing what _she_ started.” Valerie growled.

He points a finger at her like a stern parent. The blaster on her wrist freezes into uselessness. “No one’s finishing anything! I didn’t ask you to come so you two could go at each other’s throats.”

“Why am I the one being blamed for the fight _she_ picked?”

Danielle glares around the barrier of her twin. “Oh, so this is all _my_ fault now?”

“ _Oh my God_ how did I become the reasonable one here?” Danny throws up his hands. “Valerie! If you want to go just _go_ already! No one’s gonna stop you.”

She meets Danielle’s eyes. “With. Pleasure.”

“Fine, great.” Danny wearily massages the bridge of his nose. “Danielle? I’m bringing you back to Amity. We’re gonna sit down with Jazz and try to figure…I dunno, _something_ out.”

Dani crosses her arms. “Who said I wanted to go back?”

“Where else are you going to go? Stay here in Vlad’s basement?”

“So what if I do? I’ve gotten along just fine without either of you,” Dani snipes in Valerie’s direction. “I don’t need your help.”

“Said the starving girl I found raiding my pantry,” Valerie muttered.

“Weren’t you _leaving_?” Dani asks.

Danny cuts in before Valerie can respond. “Oooh no I am not letting this start again. Look, Danielle. I’m sorry my keeping my powers secret meant you having to go on without a home. That was…well that was stupid and selfish of me, and you deserve better. I meant what I said about you being family. It’ll be a pretty bad shock for them, but if I come clean to my parents, I know they’ll-”

She stomps her foot on the scarred carpet. “Have you been listening to me at all? I said I don’t _want_ to come back to Amity with you! I don’t want to live in your stupid house! Maddie and Jack are _your_ parents, not mine! The closest thing I’ve got to parents are a psycho and the tank gathering dust downstairs!”

Valerie surprises herself. “Elle,” she says, almost gently.

“ _No!_ Don’t you give me that ‘Elle’ crap! You wanted me gone, I left! I never asked either of you to come looking for me!” Her voice is cracking, clogged and damp with angry tears. “Why can’t you just leave me _**ALONE!**_ ”

The words hits like a physical thing. The feedback in Valerie’s helmet speakers shriek and fail as an invisible wave of force slams into her, tossing her toppling backwards. She’s not sure if the foundation to the whole house shook or that was just every bone in her body rattling.

Valerie’s on the ground, head swimming in muddled vertigo. Her ears are still ringing and she can’t see a thing. The armor’s visor is cracked all to hell. Sitting up gives her another wave of of dizziness, but she manages to pull off her helmet. Piles of fallen books glitter with shards from every window in the room, all completely shattered. Danny’s nearby, dazed and mumbling in confusion about some kind of wail.

Danielle’s in the center of the destruction. She takes a step and stumbles. Her body flickers between human and ghost before she grits her teeth and steadies herself back to her ghost half.

“Stop looking at me like that,” her voice sounds scratchy and hoarse. She sniffles. “I never meant for any of this. I didn’t want to lie. All I wanted was to have a friend that didn’t know what I was. Who just saw me, instead of a stupid… _clone_.  

“But I guess that wasn’t in the cards, huh?” She chokes out a laugh, sniffling again. “Well I’m so sorry my _existence_ makes you uncomfortable. How do you think I feel? Being some psycho’s mad-science experiment. Being a _failure_ , some…some…shitty copy?!”

The tears run down her cheeks. She grabs her chest, right over her heart, sobbing like she’s trying to claw it out. “I never wanted this! _I never asked to be_ made _!”_

Her legs give out, flimsy as a cut marionette, and she falls to her knees.

Valerie’s there to catch her.

Dani clings to her, whole body shaking and she hiccups and cries. Valerie sniffs, tasting snot, and realizes that she’s crying quiet tears with her. She shooshes into Dani’s hair, shushes her as she keeps mumbling into her chest over and over that she’s sorry, she’s sorry about everything.

“Don’t say that,” Valerie murmurs. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I want to go home,” Dani hiccups, holding on to her tighter. “I just want to go home.”

She wants to tell her everything. She wants to tell her how much she’s missed her, how empty home’s been, how much her heart is twisted inside knowing that she hurt her. Only she doesn’t do any of that. For now all she’s doing is holding on to her like Dani will come apart if she lets go. The other stuff can come later; the full weight of the week is catching up to them, and they’re so tired.

Danny’s crouched next to them. Valerie has no idea how long he’s been there, or how long she’s been sitting on the ruined floor, picking glass out of Dani’s hair while she cried herself into exhaustion.

Careful not to disturb her, Valerie slowly stands up. Dani feels too light and frail in her arms.

Danny hesitantly reaches out and strokes Danielle’s hair. “Do you need me to help carry her?”

Valerie adjusts her hold. “No, I’ve got her.”

He sighed, sounding as tired as she felt. “What happens now?”

“Let’s just go home first, Danny. We worry about the rest later.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this whole mess happened after I mentioned about how characters who've been created (like Amethyst from Steven Universe or Rocket Raccoon) saying how they'd "never asked to be made" was about the saddest line any character could say. 
> 
> So of course my good friend decided to destroy me by adding clone angst into the mix: http://beccadrawsstuff.tumblr.com/post/113925369456
> 
> I don't know why I decided to set this after a not-quite mentioned accidental reveal of both Danny's identity and Danielle's nature, but it felt more natural than writing a standard start-to-finish timeline of events, so hopefully it worked out.


End file.
